PEDLEY, WO2 Leon Alfred (R53505) - Mention in Despatches - No.143 Wing (AFRO identifies unit only as “Overseas”) - Award effective 1 January 1946 as per London Gazette of that date and AFRO 388/46 dated 12 April 1946. Born 10 March 1910; enlisted 16 October 1939 as Aero Engine Mechanic. Initially with No.11 (BR) Squadron; promoted AC1, 29 February 1940; promoted LAC, 29 May 1940; promoted Corporal, 29 November 1940. To No.118 (Fighter) Squadron, 9 December 1940. Promoted Sergeant, 1 July 1941. Promoted Flight Sergeant, 1 May 1942. Posting to No.118 (Fighter) Squadron confirmed, 16 August 1943, apparently in preparation for overseas transfer. To “Y” Depot, 26 October 1943; taken on strength of No.3 PRC, Bournemouth, 31 October 1943. Promoted WO2, 1 April 1945. Repatriated 7 August 1945; released 26 September 1945. Died in Perth, Ontario, 13 May 2004. RCAF photo PL-43521 (ex UK-20841 dated 21 April 1945) is captioned as follows: “The Canadian Typhoon Wing moved recently onto an airstrip just vacated by the Luftwaffe. Several FW.190s were left around the field, many of them booby-trapped with high explosive charges. In this case, S/L Donald Brewster of Nelson, B.C., the Chief Technical Officer, points out to his chief maintenance N.C.O., Flight Sergeant A.L. Pedley of Perth, Ontario, and F/O F.H. Price (RAF), who is in charge of the salvage unit which moved the aircraft from the perimeter track, just where the detonator had been removed by the bomb disposal squad.” // RCAF Press Release No.8607 dated 6 February 1945, transcribed by Huguette Mondor Oates, reads: // A FORWARD RCAF AIRFIELD IN HOLLAND: -- He has seen more fitters and riggers, N.C.O.’s and officers, pass through his squadron than the great majority of technicians, and he is the premier member of the City of Montreal “Wildcat” squadron. // He is Flight Sergeant L. Alfred Pedley, 34-year-old mechanic from Perth, Ontario, and, since he joined this squadron in December, 1939, hundreds of its experienced members have been posted to form the nucleus of other squadron ground-sections. // Flight Sergeant Pedley plans to open his own garage in one of the smaller Canadian towns after the war, and has saved his pay to this end. “Not in a big city – too much capital and too much overhead. You see, the idea is I can do my own work and I don’t have to worry about the other fellow’s mistakes,” he explains. Although he is normally responsible for the maintenance of some 100 Typhoon engines, he is not interested in civilian aviation in post war years, contending that such work will be too strictly controlled to permit successful private enterprise. // He left the town of Duckingfield, Cheshire, to emigrate to Canada in 1926, farmed near Kingston for two years, toured Western Canada as farm hand and then learned what makes automobiles tick in garages in Kinsgton and Perth, Ontario. Since joining his squadron, he has flown from its post at Dartmouth, N.S., to Alaska, and incidentally completed several tricky jobs of maintenance en route. The employees of a garage in Winnipeg may recall the harassed flight sergeant who brazed two hydraulic tubes together in order to repair aircraft brakes --- by the way, it worked, for two years.